The weather gods have
smiled kindly on the last day of Saito Challenge 8, for which we thank them and forgive the five
recent typhoons, the one possibly coming early next week, and even the
three-day gale that stopped Saito-san dead in his wake at Cape Horn and delayed
tomorrow's return by more than 2 years.

It may or may not
rain a bit in the morning but that will seem like fair skies after 3 years of
dealing with weather as if it was a life-or-death matter. That's because it was.

Nicole BMW Shuten-dohji III is still on schedule to reach
Yokohama tomorrow morning between 10:00 and 10:30. Saito-san is expected to
come in with the sails raised (as much as the Hawaii repairs allow), do a few
victory laps, dowse the sails one last time, then settle NBSDIII at the
floating dock like a big, tired seabird finally coming to rest.

He left Japan 1,080 days previously, facing huge risks, knowing
the chances of failure, even death, were substantial, but never wavering with a
broad smile that could probably have been seen from the top of Mt. Fuji.

Here
is the last time we saw him with his chase boat, Magellan Major, from a lookout
point near the Kenzaki Lighthouse Start Line 20 nm south of Yokohama.

Nicole BMW
Shuten-dohji III is on schedule to reach Yokohama Saturday, with weather and
winds cooperating -- but just barely. Saito-san has never sounded as upbeat as he has the past
several days as the anticipation builds.

In Tokyo and
Yokohama, media arrangements are being made, with two of the six main TV channels
sending camera crews, and several major newspapers, and at least one foreign
one, planning to send news teams.

Saito-san will meet
up with Magellan Major, the spotting boat that saw him off on October 2, 2008,
at the official start line at Kenzaki Lighthouse.

The weather continues
to look quite favorable over the next 48 hours, expected to be cloudy and fair
on Saturday.

There IS an area
typhoon, in fact TWO but the first and bigger one (Roke) has moved sharply west
and does not present a problem.

The second smaller
one, No. 19, is closely following Saito's path but he will be in Yokohama
before it nears Japan according to projections. It has only appeared on the
weather screen in the past 8 hours.

Two typhoons shown in 36-hour projection

Next week's forecast calls for rain & thunderstorms for
Yokohama from Monday or Tuesday straight through to next weekend. Typhoon No.
19 is projected to veer to the east before it reaches Japan, but Hachijojima
looks like it has at least some chance of getting clobbered as early as
Tuesday.

So a day or two later departure date might have caused still
another drawn-out delay.

Whew. We would NOT have wanted to break that
bit of news to Saito-san!

Please note that
the arrival time Saturday has been moved up 30 minutes.

We set the date for his
arrival, which may be wet, but at least – right now – there is no typhoon in
the forecast. If you are in Japan, come welcome him this Saturday at 10:00 --11:15 am
in Yokohama. [Please note the slightly earlier time change.]

Strictly by coincidence –
honest! – Saito-san returns to Japan at the start of a three-day national
holiday weekend. Monday is the nation's annual "Respect for the Elderly
Day."

If we'd had the pull, we'd
have asked the powers-that-be to set it aside especially for him, but this is the
next best thing: He will be 77 years, 8
months, and 10 days old on arrival.

Read herefor the news
story we prepared and Mike Seymour arranged to be published today in JapanToday.

You'll find there are
already a lot of comments, including from one person who has proposed Saito-san
as the next Prime Minister of Japan.

An easy arrival just in
time for lunch yesterday closed the 380 nm move from Chichijima Island to Hachijojima Island,
with all onboard systems working well, and the weather also cooperating. Assisted by improved winds he was able to sail up to the last hour and then motor the rest
of the way into the fishing harbor at the northeast corner of the main island,
arriving a bit after 1100. He was given assistance at the pier by Mr. Takeuchi,
the owner/operator of a Yanmar-certified marine services company there.

Fishing harbor on Hachijojima

As we mentioned yesterday,
Hachijojima has aninteresting history as the outermost of the Seven Izu
Islands, going back thousands of years to the Jomon Period. We've always been fascinated by the
stories of the criminals and political exiles banished to the islands back in the 16th to 18th centuries. Elaborately long expositions
can be seen written into walls of volcanic rock deeply etched, apparently by prisoners, but
in Kanji almost indecipherable to
modern Japanese eyes.

Hachijo – its popular
nickname – is both the furthest out of the Seven Izu Islands, and among the most beautiful of the volcanic islands that stretch like a gorgeous string of pearls beginning near Tokyo Bay all
the way out to the two Hachijo islands 140 nm distant (Hachijojima and the much
smaller HachijoKO – "child" – jima). One can hardly fault Saito-san
for his impatience to get there, nor for his obvious joy that came from his easy
arrival at a place renown for its bountiful seafood and a wide choice of relaxing hot
springs.

Details are still being
worked out for how long he will stay there before the 30-hour sail he expects
it will take to go the remainder of the way to Yokohama.

Saito-san called an hour
earlier than normal this morning to report he had the islands of Hachijojima in
sight, their majestic 701- and 854-meter dormant double volcanoes easily visible
about 7 nm off his port bow.

Hachijojima and Hachijokojima Islands, Wikipedia

Saito-san was planning to
furl sails and turn on the engine in about two hours to motor the rest of the
way in to a fishing harbor on the northeast corner of Hachijojima.

He sailed 102 nm in the
period, reporting no particular problems as he moved to within a bit over a day
of sailing time to reach the official ending point of his nearly 3-year
circumnavigation. He will stay in Hachijo until mid-week, then depart –
typhoons allowing – in order to make a scheduled Saturday morning, September
17, arrival in Yokohama.

Final word on the Yokohama
arrival location and time will be issued later in the week as weather
conditions are assessed for next weekend. Japan is currently at the height of
the typhoon season, with 14 North Pacific storms already officially recorded.
That number already matches the total number of storms in 2010, despite still another 2 months still remaining in this year's storm season which ends in November.

It is expected that the
final 140 nm into Yokohama will take under 2 days to complete, which is the
"weather window" he will require. Winds are notoriously weak in the
Tokyo Bay area in August (showing this morning as being less than 4 kts).

Winds were good during the
night mostly from the east at 11-14 kts. He called again at 0800 and said they
had fallen to under 8 kts with boat speed dropping to 3 kts. "That means
another 2 or 2½ hours before I can get there," he judged.

Weather continued to be
unthreatening on ClearPoint projections – at least for the next several days.

A developing tropical
depression is presently 700 nm SW of his position but looks to be staying on a
safe track to Saito-san's northwest. (On ClearPoint it is shown to be roughly
following the earlier path of Typhoon Kulap.) Meanwhile, a new and growing
tropical storm can be seen 600 nm to his SE in the 4-day projection (image).

***

Distance in last 24 hours: 102 nm DOG / 102 nm DMG

DMG over
last 5 days of sailing: 379 nm

Total
distance completed: 28,355 nm

To Yokohama:
147 nm (measured)

To
Hachijojima: 10 nm (measured)

ETA,
Hachijojima: 3 hrs

ETA,
Yokohama: 6 days (TBA)

Heading: 358°

Reported
boat speed: 3.0 - 4.0 kt

Average boat
speed: 4.4 kt

Weather:
clear, scattered clouds

Temperature:
28.0° C

Barometer:
1018 hPa

Wind (from):
11-14 kts ESE & E

Waves: 2.0 m

Sails: Genoa
90%, staysail 0%, mainsail 2pt reef

Engine: 0
hrs

Generator: 9
hrs

[Weather and wind forecasts are from ClearPoint Weather, a Saito 8 Supporting
Sponsor.]